Generally speaking, I think this is a valid perspective when applied broadly on the landscape. Where I think it's failing, however, is that in more than a few locations the sheer quantity and density of trails, especially in suburban/crown interface areas, is starting to make me reflect on the impacts of trails and use on the environment, because trails and use as a whole has changed so much and we haven't necessarily adjusted to that reality, imo.
I think this is less evident in more rural areas of BC, but in North Van, Squamish, parts of Whistler, etc, trails in certain networks have spider-webbed into dense sprawling networks that are taking up more and more of the forests, and while I think traditionally low density networks don't have that much impact on wildlife movement or foraging, that becomes less so the more people and trails we jam into forests. I analyzeda property in Squamish that was 1km2 of area, it had at that time 2 years ago nearly 20km of trail on it...I think by almost anyone's metric that is excessive, and it isn't isolated to that one property and can be easily seen by looking at heat maps of networks across networks near towns in southern BC.
Sure, even then, probably not as bad as forestry, but that's a pretty low bar to meet and I think we as a user group need to do better to head off the environmental battles that I have been seeing poking their heads out over the past few years. We can't ignore our own actual or potential impacts just because some other industry groups are worse and get away with it.
Oct. 28, 2023, 10:10 a.m. - Todd Hellinga
Generally speaking, I think this is a valid perspective when applied broadly on the landscape. Where I think it's failing, however, is that in more than a few locations the sheer quantity and density of trails, especially in suburban/crown interface areas, is starting to make me reflect on the impacts of trails and use on the environment, because trails and use as a whole has changed so much and we haven't necessarily adjusted to that reality, imo. I think this is less evident in more rural areas of BC, but in North Van, Squamish, parts of Whistler, etc, trails in certain networks have spider-webbed into dense sprawling networks that are taking up more and more of the forests, and while I think traditionally low density networks don't have that much impact on wildlife movement or foraging, that becomes less so the more people and trails we jam into forests. I analyzeda property in Squamish that was 1km2 of area, it had at that time 2 years ago nearly 20km of trail on it...I think by almost anyone's metric that is excessive, and it isn't isolated to that one property and can be easily seen by looking at heat maps of networks across networks near towns in southern BC. Sure, even then, probably not as bad as forestry, but that's a pretty low bar to meet and I think we as a user group need to do better to head off the environmental battles that I have been seeing poking their heads out over the past few years. We can't ignore our own actual or potential impacts just because some other industry groups are worse and get away with it.